Maybe 10-15 years ago I read the title, and part of a booked, called "Soul Murder". And thought, "yes, that's me. My soul was murdered."

Then, thought maybe not exactly, just the fact that I was thinking/recognizing that meant that my soul probably wasn't dead, just paralyzed.

I have sometimes thought that the intense pain I have experienced in therapy and it's aftermath may be like when your foot goes to sleep? And then it feels all prickly as, and before, it fully "wakes up". Only, of course, this is so MUCH MUCH worse than that.

I believe that I am trying my best to "wake up" and be a person, in a world and among other people, and it's so dang hard when the soul got paralyzed, or paralyzed itself to protect against the horrible horrible pain that we felt as kids, like we are feeling now. And it hurts so much and I want to go back and numb out again, and yet know that's a no win road at this point in my "life", whatever that may be. Not much. And it's not like I developed other skills, or a real psychological skin, at the time, and so now???? How to do that now?

That's why I think a supportive social environment may be essential for this kind of stuff, not just a "therapeutic relationship", if there are any for this kind of thing. And if you haven't built a supportive social environment yourself -- because, well, how can you when your soul is dead/paralyzed -- then we're kind of up the creek.

Support groups have helped me some. And I'm on this forum interacting and venting and maybe being, like, a person? And arguing for more and better support groups, and understanding of the misery, trauma, and adverse life effects some of us have experienced with therapy. Because I think and still believe, sometimes anyway, that I (and you and "we") CAN get better and maybe even OK and socially (almost) functional. And that is a goal that I think is really, really important -- for me personally, but also because there are (possibly a lot of) other folks whose lives aren't as full and whose talents aren't contributing near as much to society as they might, if we were "weller". And that just sucks, of course. My goals may not materialize. But as goals go, I'm OK with having them.